Back in the day, all the best writers were doing serialized work, like Dickens. And novels were a lot more like comic books, or soap operas. And now, thanks to e-books, could that day be coming back again?

It sure seems like it. John Scalzi's new Old Man's War novel is getting serialized by Tor. And now, Superpowers author David J. Schwartz is doing a serialized novel for Amazon.com's 47 North imprint. And what's better, it sounds like Harry Potter meets Community. Here's how Schwartz describes it:

Gooseberry Bluff is not a school for the chosen ones. It's a school for those who have run out of choices. An unlikely place for an international conspiracy. But after suspicious paranormal signatures are reported and a professor of magical history goes missing, the possibility of demon trafficking seems more and more likely...

GOOSEBERRY BLUFF COMMUNITY COLLEGE OF MAGIC: THE THIRTEENTH RIB, the first season set in Schwartz's fantastic contemporary world, begins the tale of Joy Wilkins, an undercover agent with the Federal Bureau of Magical Affairs, as she starts her first semester of teaching and investigating the alarming activity at this school of magic on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The deeper she goes, the closer she gets to dangerous secrets that could threaten her entire world.

Sounds fun, let's hope this is a trend. What would be really neat is if an established, trusted author wrote a serial and revised the later chapters in real time in response to reader feedback on the earlier chapters. [David J. Schwartz]